


A Connection Is a Thing Which Requires Maintenance

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Domestic, F/M, Humour, Post-IM3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 00:36:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>One rainy afternoon Tony gets home to find a wet-haired child in an over-sized bathrobe sitting on the penthouse couch, watching cartoons.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Um, what,” says Tony.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Oh, hey,” Harley says, noticing him. “JARVIS showed me where to go. He told me to leave my clothes in the bathroom so they could dry, and said I could borrow one of your bathrobes. You have a really big TV, you know that?”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Connection Is a Thing Which Requires Maintenance

**Author's Note:**

> Because seriously, apart from JARVIS: Combat Butler, Harley Keener was my favourite thing about IM3.

**A Connection Is a Thing Which Requires Maintenance**

One rainy afternoon Tony gets home to find a wet-haired child in an over-sized bathrobe sitting on the penthouse couch, watching cartoons.

“Um, what,” says Tony.

“Oh, hey,” Harley says, noticing him. “JARVIS showed me where to go. He told me to leave my clothes in the bathroom so they could dry, and said I could borrow one of your bathrobes. You have a really big TV, you know that?”

“What are you doing here?” Tony asks. “Wait, does that mean you’re naked under there?”

Harley eyes him suspiciously. 

“What’s it to you?”

“Jesus _, not like that_ ,” Tony groans. “Just, don’t take it off, or anything, okay?”

“Duh, of course not.” Harley looks offended. “I’m _eleven_. I don’t run around naked. I mean, not usually. Not without a good reason.”

Tony somehow manages not to ask what Harley considers a good reason, even though he really, really wants to. Inappropriate conversation to have with an eleven year old, he thinks.

“What are you doing here?” he repeats instead.

“You didn’t write or anything.” Harley changes the channel to a different cartoon and doesn’t meet Tony’s eyes. “So I thought I’d visit.”

“I gave your private workshop a proper upgrade and sent you a Christmas present,” Tony accuses, “what more do you want from me?”

Harley goes quiet. Tony sighs and drops down onto the couch next to him.

“Talk to me, kid. Spill. What’s your real reason?”

“My Mom’s got a new boyfriend.” Harley sounds sullen. “He’s a huge asshole and I hate him, and he wasn’t going to leave, so I did.”

“So you – how did you even _get_ here?” Tennessee and New York aren’t exactly close.

Harley shrugs.

“Mostly I caught buses. I had some money, so it was okay. I slept in the bus stations a couple of times on the way here.”

“Christ.” Tony can just imagine what might have happened to the kid. It makes his hair stand on end and rouses a paternal instinct he will forever deny he possesses. “Listen, I am going to call your mom and let her know where you are, okay? Personally, I don’t mind you coming to stay, but worrying your mom like that is not cool.”

‘I left a note!” Harley protests. Tony gives him a disbelieving look.

“…all it said was I was running away,” Harley admits.

“That’s it, your mom’s number, right now,” Tony orders.

Harley’s mom bursts into tears when he tells her where her son is, and when she realises the call is on speakerphone and Harley is in the room she yells at him for like fifteen minutes. Tony is a little impressed.

Harley just sinks right down into the couch, looking sulky and a little ashamed of himself. Tony knows those feels. He breaks in and assures Mrs Keener that Harley is fine, and that having him here isn’t a problem, no, he’s glad Harley came to him instead of doing something even more stupid.

Maggie Keener has no idea how she’s going to get Harley back home, so Tony finds himself doing something stupid of his own.

“Well, he can stay here until you make arrangements,” Tony offers. “Or I can make arrangements. I can have one of my people drive him the whole way home, if you want. But look, it sounds like the two of you need a bit of a break, so why don’t you let him stay here a couple of days first?”

Harley leaps off the couch and tackles him in a hug.

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re excited, get off, no hugs, demonstrations of affection give me hives,” Tony tells him.

But he awkwardly ruffles the kid’s hair anyway.

* * *

The first thing Tony does is send someone to buy Harley some clothes so that he doesn’t spend the entire visit wearing nothing but a giant (compared to the kid) bathrobe.

“Cool,” says Harley, surveying the range of grey, navy, khaki and denim clothing with approval. He turns speculative eyes on Tony. “Hey, if I asked you to buy me a-”

“No,” Tony says firmly.

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“Don’t care.”

“I was only going to say one of those proper robot kits,” Harley grumbles. “Jeez.”

Tony wavers.

“I’m not buying you a robot kit.” Those things are trash, anyway. “But we can build a robot, if you want.” And there goes his spare time for the next few days.

Harley brightens, and beams cherubically at him.

“Awesome!”

“But clothes first,” because even Tony does have some understanding of priorities, “and have you actually eaten anything in the last few hours?”

“I kind of ran out of money,” Harley confesses, and looks big-eyed and sad. Tony rolls his eyes.

“How do you feel about pizza?”

“Pizza’s good,” Harley agrees, the sad eyes vanishing. 

“Pizza it is. Now for God’s sake, find a spare bedroom and put some damn clothes on already. JARVIS will show you where.”

Harley just grins, and goes to get changed.

Tony sighs. Damn if he doesn’t find the brat adorable.

* * *

Pepper arrives home when Tony is soldering a thing to Harley’s specifications ( _no,_ of course he isn’t going to let the kid do it _himself_. Jesus).

“You’re doing it wrong,” says Harley. Tony stops soldering, and raises his faceplate. Harley does the same.

“I’m doing it wrong? Excuse me, who exactly is the actual robotics expert here?”

“You said you’d do it like in my blueprints,” Harley replies stubbornly. “So you’re doing it wrong.”

“Tony,” says Pepper’s voice behind them, “why is there a child in your workshop?”

“Pepper!” Tony spins around. Pepper is standing there with her eyebrows arched. “Pep, my love, light of my life, pepper to my salt, meet Harley Keener. No, he’s not actually my kid, before you ask–” Harley snickers, “–he’s on loan. Apparently he basically hitchhiked his way out here, or something, so he’s staying for a few days before I send him back. And yes, his mom knows, what do you take me for?”

“You couldn’t have let me know he was staying with us?” Pepper frowns, and turns to Harley with a smile. “It’s lovely to meet you, Harley. It’s just that Tony has a habit of dropping things on me without warning.”

“Well, I didn’t really give him any warning,” Harley admits, looking carefully bashful. “And then we were building my robot.”

“He designed it,” Tony adds. It’s possible he feels a little proud.

Pepper blinks and stares at the half-finished robot. It looks a little like DUM-E, but smaller, and hopefully with greater mobility.

“That’s impressive.” Pepper says, and means it. “So how do you and Tony know each other?”

Tony makes frantic _‘don’t tell her’_ motions behind Pepper’s back.

“He crashed his Iron Man suit near my house, and then he broke into my Dad’s workshop to borrow tools and stuff,” Harley responds, looking perfectly innocent.

“ _What?_ ” Pepper looks alarmed. 

Tony glares at the kid. Harley smiles back beatifically, like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. Little shit.

“Tony, when was this?” Pepper demands.

“Uh…” Tony tries to find a way to evade the question, but Pepper stares him down. “You know, um, that time with the Mandarin, when everyone thought I was dead? It _might_ have been then.”

Pepper opens her mouth, then visibly restrains herself, her eyes flickering towards Harley, watching them curiously.

“We’ll be talking about this later.”

“Great,” Tony mutters.

“So are you his girlfriend?” Harley asks Pepper.

“Yes,” says Pepper, at the same moment as Tony says “Fiance, actually.” They look at each other. Harley glances between the two of them alertly.

“That’s a slightly complicated question,” Pepper answers Harley. Harley’s brow wrinkles.

“Why?” he asks bluntly, frowning. “I mean, are you his fiancé, or aren’t you? I don’t see how it’s complicated. It’s just a yes or no question.”

Tony quickly hides his grin before Pepper can see it.

“Well,” Pepper says slowly, hesitating, “then I suppose… yes. I am.”

Harley nods, looking at Pepper closely.

“Cool. He said you were smart, and really pretty. He’s right about the pretty thing, and I don’t know about the smart thing, but you _look_ smart, and I bet he only likes smart people, because stupid people are boring.”

Pepper smiles in spite of herself.

“Thank you, Harley. You seem like a smart young man yourself.” She glances at Tony. “I’m going to be upstairs if you boys need me. Chinese for dinner?”

“Sure, why not? Kid, what do you think?”

“That sounds fine to me,” Harley shrugs.

* * *

The second day of Harley’s stay, Tony is woken by an eleven year old bouncing on his bed.

“Wake up!” Harley orders, as Tony tries to burrow into the blankets like they’re a protective cocoon, determined to remain asleep. “Oh my God, it’s ten o’clock already, how are you still _sleeping?_ “

He accidentally lands on Tony’s kidney, and with a yelp Tony gives up on getting any more sleep.

“I’m awake, I’m awake, Jesus, get off and get out of my bedroom, what is wrong with you,” Tony complains, sitting up. Harley eyes his hair, which is standing in all directions.

“You’re really not a morning person, are you.”

“ _Coffee_ ,” Tony groans yearningly, but decides to shower first. “Kid. Harley. _Out_.”

Harley goes, but, “If you’re not out in ten minutes I’m coming in!” he calls over his shoulder.

“Little bastard,” Tony mutters.

He emerges just under ten minutes later still towelling his hair, wearing a Led Zeppelin shirt and an old pair of jeans, to find that the kitchen has a pair of assassins in it. Harley is staring in wide-eyed fascination at Natasha, who is carving something into the table with her knife, while Clint is making enough sandwiches for two people.

“Dammit, how many times have I asked people not to carve things into the furniture?” Tony grouses as he walks in. “I swear, if I’d known about your habit of carving things into every surface, I wouldn’t have invited you to move in.”

“You didn’t,” says Natasha, which is true: she just sort of showed up to breakfast one day, and it turned out she’d been living in the Tower for about a week before that. Tony still doesn’t know how that happened.

“You’re the Black Widow,” Harley marvels. “Did you kill someone with that knife?”

“Not this knife,” says Natasha, which is a statement which Tony personally finds rather disturbing. He seems to be the only one. Harley is still looking fascinated, and Clint just passes Natasha a plate of sandwiches.

“Uh-huh. But I bet you killed someone with another knife, right?” Harley cranes his neck to see what Natasha has been carving into the tabletop. “Tony said you can kill someone with a paperclip twelve different ways. Hey, is that a dragon? It’s really good. Is Hawkeye your boyfriend?”

“Wait, what?” Clint blinks.

“No.” Natasha might be smiling, just a little. It’s hard to tell. “He helps me kill people.”

“ _Tasha!_ ” Clint exclaims – at least one of them has a sense of decency where children are concerned – but Harley just breathes, “ _Wicked_ ,” and looks deeply impressed.

“I hate to be a responsible adult, but have you had breakfast?” Tony asks, going straight for the coffee machine.

“Yeah, I had some cereal ages ago. Are you having coffee for breakfast?” Harley gives him dubious eyebrows. “That’s really bad for you, you know. You should eat some food.”

“What are you, my mother?”

“I’m just saying. If you want to, like, have a heart attack or something, I don’t care.”

“I’m not going to have a heart attack!” Tony snaps.

“Really? Because you seem pretty old to me,” Harley observes, and Clint almost suffocates on half a sandwich. Natasha thumps him on the back, and he coughs it up again, eyes watering.

This time Natasha is definitely smiling.

“You are such a little shit,” Tony decides, sipping at his coffee. “I’m not old. But fine, whatever, I’ll eat something. What do you want to do today, anyway?”

“I thought we were working on my robot?” Harley pouts.

“Well, we can do that,” Tony agrees, “but I thought maybe there was something in New York you might want to do or see while you’re here. It’s your call.”

Harley’s eyes go wide.

“Really?” he says, and looks like he’s thinking hard about what he’d like to do. Tony raids Thor’s poptart stash while he’s waiting for an answer.

“Can we go to the Museum of Natural History?” Harley asks hopefully.

“I guess. Why there?”

“ _Dinosaurs_ ,” Harley says, like _obviously._ Okay, for a kid his age, it probably does seem pretty obvious. “They have _dinosaur skeletons_ there. I’ve always wanted to see a dinosaur.”

“Fine, American Museum of Natural History it is,” Tony confirms easily, even as he’s wondering how best to go incognito so that the paparazzi don’t take snaps of him and the kid.

“ _Yes!_ ” Harley whoops, leaping off his chair with his arms raised in victory.

* * *

Tony is never, ever taking a kid anywhere again. It’s exhausting, seriously. He has no idea where Harley gets the energy from. So far Harley has dragged him all over the museum – they’ve been in the halls with the dinosaur fossils at least twice, and Tony has a feeling Harley’s going to want to see them again one more time before they leave – looking at absolutely everything and taking photos on the StarkPhone Tony sent him at Christmas. 

Right now they’re looking at the shop items associated with the dinosaur exhibit, and so far Harley has collected several toy dinosaurs, something called a Tyrannosaurus Paleo Lab, a couple of posters, and an American Museum of Natural History pencilcase decorated with dinosaurs.

Somehow, Tony has ended up being the one carrying all this stuff.

“That’s it, enough stuff,” he declares, and Harvey looks disappointed, like a sorrowful cherub. “No, seriously, I can’t carry any more, not enough arms, and I’m probably spoiling you anyway. I’m pretty sure buying lots of things for kids is bad for their character or whatever. Captain America would look stern at me. Besides, then you’ll expect me to always buy you things.”

“But you do always buy me things,” Harley argues reasonably.

“See? Clearly, I should stop.”

“But then you’ll just disappoint me,” Harley said mournfully, and Tony has to give him points for how dejected he looks.

“Yeah, no, not going to work,” he says, heading to the checkout. “Excuse me, hi, can you ring these through please? Only these, if he adds anything to the pile take it off.”

Harley looks mutinous.

“But you’re rich.”

“You know, I could just not buy you _anything_. I could change my mind and the two of us could walk out of here empty-handed.” Tony looks at Harley over the top of his dark sunglasses. “It’s up to you. By all means, keep up the whining and see where it gets you.”

“ _Fine_ ,” Harley sighs, and looks resigned. “It was worth a try.”

“Sure. But there are times when you shouldn’t press your luck, and that was turning into one of them.” Tony hands the bag of stuff to the kid. “Also, new rule: you own it, you carry it.”

Harley doesn’t look pleased, but takes the bag without complaint.

* * *

They get ice cream for lunch (a very, very late lunch). After all, Tony reasons, ice cream has milk in it, so that makes it healthy, right? He asks Harley, who agrees, although Tony is willing to admit he’s probably biased on that point and maybe not the best judge. Whatever, Tony’s a rich bachelor, how is he supposed to know what to feed kids? He barely feeds himself.

After that they head back to the Tower, to work on Harley’s robot some more.

By late afternoon Tony is exhausted, and sets Harley up with some movies in front of the TV before crashing in his room for a much-needed nap.

Maybe Harley’s right. Maybe he is getting old, he thinks right before drifting off.

* * *

The next morning Tony is roused by Pepper, who reminds him that Harley is being driven home today.

Tony kind of hates that he feels faintly relieved. He likes the kid and all, maybe has deep vaguely-fatherly feelings he refuses to admit to, but Harley is a boundless ball of energy. Too much exposure is wearying. Tony’s better with maintaining their relationship at a distance.

“Morning,” he tells the kid, who looks insultingly surprised to see Tony well-groomed and in a suit.

“Wow,” says Harley, “you actually clean up pretty good.”

“Thanks.”

Tony makes a cup of coffee, and remembering yesterday, goes for the poptarts as well.

“So I guess I’m going home today, huh?” Harley looks resigned.

“Yep. Along with your stuff from the museum, your robot – let me know how that goes when you finish him, by the way – and some of your new clothes. I figured the rest of your clothes can stay here for when you visit during summer vacation.”

Harley’s faintly pensive face transforms with joy.

“I’m visiting during summer vacation?!” he yells, bouncing up and down excitedly. Tony grins.

“Yeah, your mom agreed last night – _oof!_ ” Coffee sloshes onto the floor as Tony is delightedly hugged. Tony juggles coffee and poptarts until he has a free hand, and pats Harley’s shoulder. “Yeah, I know, it’ll be awesome. Try to behave, though, okay? Don’t want your mom revoking permission because you pissed her off.”

“I won’t, I promise,” Harley assures him fervently, and Tony just smiles tolerantly.

Next time, he is _so_ caffeinating himself up to the eyeballs. Seriously.   


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [My Summer Vacation, by Harley Keener](https://archiveofourown.org/works/921296) by [TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel)




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